Noe Tanigawa

Arts & Culture Reporter

Noe Tanigawa

Noe Tanigawa covers art, culture, and ideas for Hawai'i Public Radio. Noe began working in news at WQXR, the New York Times' classical station in New York City, where she also hosted music programs from 1990-94. Prior to New York, Noe was a music host in jazz, rock, urban contemporary, and contemporary and classic Hawaiian music formats in Honolulu. Since arriving at HPR in 2002, Noe has received awards from the Los Angeles Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists Hawai'i Chapter, and an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for coverage of the budget process at the Hawai'i State Legislature. Noe holds a Masters in Painting from UH Mānoa. She maintains an active painting practice, and has recently returned from a 2015 residency with the U.S. Art in Embassies program in Palau. Noe is from Wailupe Valley in East O'ahu.

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The Hawai‘i State Art Museum, HiSAM, is one of the state’s best kept secrets, but that’s about to change. The Friends of HiSAM have redone the shop with MORI by Art and Flea, the popular café sports rotating shows now, Family Second Saturdays are gaining momentum and HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports there’s even valet service to enjoy First Fridays.

Dance in Tonga is still a village thing, and people devote hours daily after work to practice for important occasions. Separate groups of men and women perform, sometimes in spectacular groups of several hundred at a time, with intricate hand gestures, bobbing feather head pieces in unison. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports some of Tonga’s finest will be here next week for the Asia Pacific Dance Festival.

Seoul is known as the "leading digital city" on earth, and Korea is the world’s number one producer of mobile phones, displays, semiconductors, and other technological hardware. Digital giants like Samsung and LG continually test new products on South Korean consumers, and the UH Center for Korean Studies is sponsoring a conference that could give us a glimpse into our technological future. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa spoke with a human-computer interface expert about what’s ahead.

Dance is amazingly different across cultures, and social scientists say a culture’s beliefs and values are expressed in dance. The 2017 Asia Pacific Dance Festival at UH Mānoa is an opportunity to enjoy the people and dances of Hawai‘i, Korea, and Tonga, and, for the first time, Hawai‘i chefs will add to the cross cultural appreciation. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

On the Diamond Head end of Waikīkī, crowds of up to a hundred people have been reported along the boundaries set up on Kaimana beach to protect a monk seal and her pup. The pup, born between June 27 and 28, is growing and getting stronger, prompting new and broader warnings from the Department of Land and Natural Resources. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

One of the great pleasures of living in a place, is learning the stories about its nooks and crannies. In HPR’s Hometown collection, we visit places of historical or cultural interest that may be easy to miss. Today in Hometown Honolulu, HPR’s Noe Tanigawa visits a memorial right outside the State Archives, and a petroglyph site in Nu‘uanu.

Hawai‘i is a famously mixed plate of different cultural cuisines, and on the music scene, there’s a local band that is adding in some African influences. Drawing on vibrant contemporary music from Senegal, Liberia, Nigeria, Guinea and Mali, HPRs Noe Tanigawa says Jamarek is creating a new local hybrid.

The state legislature will convene for five days starting August 28th 2017 to hammer out a financial plan for Honolulu’s rail transit project. Meanwhile, plans for transit oriented design, TOD, projects have been in the works for years. Waipahu’s Neighborhood TOD Plan is the first to be approved by the City Council, and HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, parts of the plan are getting underway now.

Starting today through Sunday, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center is staging a pop up in the old Foodland location at Ala Moana Center. Audiences are invited to hear and see over fifty artists and thinkers from across the country and Hawai‘i filling the space with their work. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa stopped by for a preview.

The Doris Duke Theatre’s annual Surf Film Festival is underway with choice selections like Nervous Laughter, about an El Nino year at Pe’ahi, Maui’s notorious winter break, and Alternative Surf Craft, about new and unique ways of riding waves. HRP’s Noe Tanigawa reports on a film about one longboard ‘s travels through waves and lives around the world. Surf film director, Jason Baffa discusses current directions.

Many Hawai‘i residents are well-travelled and can knowledgeably compare the world’s great cities. With Honolulu in the midst of a development boom, some wonder what is guiding this city’s transformation. A group of local designers, architects and landscape designers is working to make sure communities are involved in changes that are coming with the rail transit project. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

Ward Warehouse was expected to last fifteen years when it opened in 1975. Now, over 40 years later, it will close in August to make way for a highrise. Right now, along with sales galore, a few interesting new shops have taken old spaces. The Paradise Cove art collective has a storefront, and so does J20+, an offshoot of the January 20th Inauguration Day protests. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports on their exhibition, Welcome to Free Speech.

After rolling layoffs for the last few years during hotel renovations, Lāna‘i residents are enjoying 3.4% unemployment, three points lower than this time last year. This weekend will be a particularly exciting on Lāna‘i, priming for the July fourth holiday with the Pineapple Festival on Saturday. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

Paradise Cove is a Hawaii-based collective presenting site-specific installations and art-related events. They create temporary experiences that encourage people to think critically about Hawaii, and they like to exhibit in places where people do not usually think too critically. For the rest of the month, Paradise Cove has exhibits up at Ars Cafe on Monsarrat Avenue and at Ward Warehouse, in a typical retail storefront. HPR's Noe Tanigawa spoke with one of the members.

A delegation of Hawai‘i women is heading to Okinawa to link their efforts with other islanders impacted by U.S. military presence. The International Women’s Network Against Militarism points to human and environmental costs of war and explores ways women can build more peaceful futures. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

Two hundred forty five crewmembers participated onboard the Hōkūle‘a in the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, but many thousands more participated from land, following the voyage online. Case in point, Vince Farrant, a recent Kamehameha School graduate, who followed the canoe’s progress and met many crewmembers through a Celestial Navigation class at Kamehameha School. In HPR's Noe Tanigawa's interview, he reflects on the significance of this voyage for new generations.

The Hōkūle‘a's Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage began in 2013 with a sail around the Hawaiian archipelago. Since then, the Hōkūle‘a and Hikianalia, the Polynesian Voyaging Society’s voyaging canoes have been plying waters across the globe, dodging cyclones and hurricanes, pirates and sandbars to complete their global circuit. HPR's Noe Tanigawa spoke with crew member Na'alehu Anthony about what he experienced.

Apprentice navigator Jenna Ishii has sailed many legs of the Hokulea’s voyages, to the Galapagos, to Australia, Nova Scotia to New York, many more. As Education Coordinator, she’s also helped arrange the amazing connections between groups and individuals that have happened at each landfall. In this extended conversation with Noe Tanigawa, Jenna explains the space flight origins of the Worldwide Voyage idea, she explains how many of the navigational observations are made, and talks about daily life onboard.

Kevork Mourad does spontaneous painting, live with musicians. He has performed at major world venues including the Metropolitan Museum, the Liverpool Biennial, and the Paris Art Fair, mixing painting, animation, video and music. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa spoke with him in advance of performances here in Honolulu while he is Artist in Residence at Shangri La.